Yesterday I was in an English-language bookstore, and in the kids’ chapter books/YA section (which is all of 2 floor-to-ceiling bookshelves), they had six brand new BSC books for sale. I was tempted to buy one, but I couldn’t really justify paying 10 dollars for a book I owned back in America.

It’s been a fairly long time since the BSC sections in the bookstores I frequent in the US disappeared. Have any of you spotted non-secondhand BSC books lately? Is Scholastic simply selling off dead stock–or are they still printing and selling them but only in international markets?

A while back, I wrote about my feelings on BSC collectibles and how I wasn’t so into them. I mentioned, however, that I would really like an original cover painting by Hodges Soileau. You see them occasionally on gallery websites, and they run about 500 USD. This is a pretty big financial commitment, so I went for the next best thing (which definitely does not pale in comparison): an original graphic novel page by Raina Telgemeier.

You can buy one directly from Raina. The info is here. As you can see in the photo above, mine also came with cool extras. The only question is how to display it! I would like it framed, but I am so scared to take it out of its pretty plastic cover!

How do you feel about BSC collectibles? I have some cool stuff, like a Karen cloth doll (definitely the rarest BSC item I have) and the party-doll set left over from when I was a kid, and all of stuff I received from the Collector’s Club when that was around. Around sophomore year of high school, I got super into ordering BSC collectibles off of ebay. I once even bid on a lot of 20 identical address books. I’m not sure what I was planning to do with them–I don’t even need one address book. If I ever had a stoneybrookite contest of some sort, I guess I could use them as prizes. Anyway, one day I just stopped. There are some people with amazing collections of BSC stuff, like Ashley, who recently posted a picture of a BSC FANNY PACK she got off ebay. Awesome. But for some reason, having BSC merchandise, while it’s cool, doesn’t feel important to me. The stuff I won off ebay five years ago isn’t even on display–it just sits in my old room. My books are flung all around my mom’s house. I like the idea of having my collection perfectly lined up on a shelf, perhaps with other collectibles around them… but I know it’s not realistic. Sigh. When you have to fit your entire life into two suitcases (thanks airline regulations!), the 300 BSC books just don’t make the cut.

For me I think the feelings the books give me that trump having a collection. The “stuff” is nice, but it doesn’t invoke an emotional response for me. I’m even satisfied with just having ebooks instead of regular books. Maybe if there were like, BSC record books and notebooks that matched the ones from the series. That would be cool. That kind of collectible always really appealed to me. Like if you could have a collie cap like Kristy’s or some of Claudia’s crazy earrings or a snorkaphone. And OMG, a Krushers shirt! That’s the kind of stuff I want–not things that are more on the promotional side.

Text, however, supercedes all.

There is something incredibly satisfying about having every BSC book, their pastel, basically uniformly-thick spines all lined up on a bookshelf. Followed, of course, by the normally white, thicker spines of the Super Specials, the dark-hued spines of the Mystery Series, the Super Mysteries, the Portrait Collection… you get the picture. I have seen many pictures of the collections of my friends within the fandom, all of whom took pictures of their perfectly organized collection, which may also include dolls in original boxes, board games, and other peripheral BSC memorabilia. While I think it would be lovely to have every BSC book at my fingertips, somehow it has never worked like that for me.

I’m a more… organic collector. All right, I’m just plain disorganized. I also haven’t had my collection at the place where I actually live for about six years now. I suppose that’s a bit strange, since I write a blog focused on the Baby-sitters Club. You’d think that I sat around all day, gazing at my collection and rereading. While I do reread when I get a chance, my collection, in its super-secret location, isn’t even all together. When I was younger, the way I kept my books “lasting” longer was that after I finished reading a BSC book, I would hide it somewhere in my house and forget about it, so I could rediscover later and it would feel like almost an all-new book, as I hadn’t read it in a few years.

I am curious about how you guys keep your collection. Is it perfectly organized and complete? Is it strewn around your house? Do you have digitsl versions of a lot of the books and then your actual collection at your parents’ house/storage facility? Are you still working hard on rebuilding/completing your collection and every book you have feels like a huge accomplishment?

I just went to Borders and picked up some stuff that came out while I was away: 2 of the graphic novels and the first main street. Obviously sometime soon I will write about what I think.

Also while I was in Borders I saw a copy of Dawn and the Impossible Three for sale. Is it an old copy… or is scholastic experimentally rereleasing the books? We can dream, can’t we?